The Archive of the Romanian Revolution of December 1989

Admission 2 from Orwellian Positively Orwellian Part Five Former Securitate Confess

Admission II:

The Revelations of former Timisoara Securitate officer Roland Vasilevici

Two months after the violence that marked Ceausescu’s overthrow—when in Bucharest the official and media rehabilitation of the USLA was already underway (discussed farther down)—a three-part series entitled “Piramida Umbrelor [Pyramid of Shadows]” appeared in the cultural/political Timisoara weekly, Orizont on 2, 9, and 16 March 1990.  The articles appeared under the name “Puspoki F.,” but it was clear from the text of the articles that the author must have some connection to the former Securitate or Militia, because he described the inner workings of these organs in their dealings with Pastor Laszlo Tokes, a focal point of the uprising against the Ceausescu regime, and their actions once protests began outside his residence on 15-16 December 1989.  Significantly, the author related the responsibilities and actions of the USLA, including their weaponry, munitions (including “special cartridges”), clothing, and physical disposition—details which were later to be substantiated elsewhere.  It was pretty clear in his discussion of the USLA and the “Comando” unit (a likely reference to the USLAC) that he believed them to have been the “terrorists” who had claimed so many lives.

In 1991, a 140 plus page book published in Timisoara, also entitled Piramida Umbrelor,

appeared.  Its author was Roland Vasilevici.  William Totok later interviewed Vasilevici in 1995, and it turned out that Vasilevici had worked for the Securitate unit that surveilled “culte [churches]” (he was specifically responsible for Roman Catholic churches) in Timisoara under the command of Radu Tinu.[69] The book included (lightly-edited) the passages that had originally appeared under the name “Puspoki F.” in Orizont and further elaborated on them.  It is pretty clear that Vasilevici was the original source of those articles.

The March 1990 Orizont series was and has been pretty much ignored in Romania—except among the former Securitate.  From jail, Radu Tinu, the Timis County Deputy Securitate chief, sought to counter the accusations “during March 1990, in the weekly “Orizont” in which a certain Puspok accused me of nationalism.”[70] In March 1992, retired Securitate Colonel Ion Lemnaru wrote in Spionaj-Contraspionaj about the 1990 pamphlet of Romeo Vasiliu, “Piramida Umbrelor,” identifying the author as Roland Vasilevici, publishing Vasilevici’s address, and then citing an extended section of the text of the pamphlet (identical to what is in the March 1990 Orizont article).  The section that is cited precisely concerns allegations about the USLA’s role in the Timisoara repression and terrorism—it is this that is clearly the focus of Colonel Lemnaru’s ire.[71]

When Vasilevici was preparing to release his book, he maintained that he was “receiving many threatening and ‘dead line’ phone calls in the middle of the night.”[72] He said two to three cars were posted outside his residence, and that he was accosted by six individuals when was on his way to the police station to file a complaint.  A former colleague informed him that he “had been contacted by the same Radu Tinu [by now out of jail] and was instructed to alert the network with the goal of by all means impeding the publication of the book.”  According to the Cuvintul interviewer, when he spoke to Vasilevici by phone, Vasilevici was “very scared…such a man generally does not panic so easily.”  When in December 1994, Vasilevici went on a local Timisoara television channel, Radu Tinu showed up at the station attempting to interrupt the transmission of the broadcast![73]

On the question of the existence of the “terrorists,” Radu Tinu would agree with Prosecutor Dan Voinea:  “There were no terrorists!  They [those who seized power and were on TV] invented them…”[74]